


Goodbyes

by SpellCleaver



Series: Love Is Not Enough [8]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Gen, Instrospection, Memories, Skywalker Family Feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-22
Updated: 2017-11-22
Packaged: 2019-02-05 16:43:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12798375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SpellCleaver/pseuds/SpellCleaver
Summary: "I thought you had decided to stay?""You're coming with us, aren't you?""Come away with me.""Come with me.""Come with me."Some goodbyes never change. Especially with the Skywalkers.





	Goodbyes

Finn's dark brown eyes were wide with barely restrained panic and terror.

Maz Kanata's were narrowed in thought as she peered at him. "If you live long enough, you see the same eyes in different people. I am looking at the eyes of a man who wants to run."

* * *

"You can't just go. I won't let you!"

"Rey, I'm not who you think I am-"

"Finn, what are you talking about?"

"I'm not with the Resistance. I'm not a hero." A pause. "I'm a stormtrooper."

Neither spoke for a moment.

"Like all of them, I was taken from a family I'll never know, and raised to do one thing. But my first battle, I made a choice. I wasn't gonna kill for them. So I ran, right into you. And you looked at me like no one ever had. I was ashamed of what I was. But I'm _done_ with the First Order - I'm never going back. Rey, come with me."

"Don't go."

* * *

"Han!" Leia's voice was sharp, eyes blazing as she strode up to him. It was a wonder Hoth didn't melt. The command in her voice was even enough to stop Han Solo mid-step.

"Yes, your Highnessness?"

She glared up at him. "I thought you had decided to stay?"

Han pursed his lips. Although he was too blind - too wilful - to spot the desperacy in her brown eyes, not even he liked being subject to that glower. Nor did he want to admit that he was technically running away. "Yeah, well, that bounty hunter we ran into on Ord Mantell changed my mind." Obstinate eyes - not brown, hazel - that would one day watch a similar conversation, glared at her.

She glared right back.

* * *

"You're coming with us, aren't you, Mom?"

They were the words of a child - someone who, despite their rough life, still maintained a degree of naïveté. They were words spoken in request for reassurance, and not because the speaker actually believed it.

And Shmi Skywalker, listening, knew it. But she could not give that reassurance. Not when it wasn't true.

She knelt down, took her son's hands, and tried to make him understand. "Son, my place is here, my future is here." It always had been - Shmi was a slave, and while she'd always dreamed of freedom, she'd never believed she might one day be lucky enough to have it. "It is time for you to let go."

But Anakin Skywalker managed to learn how to let go.

When he ran off to pack his things, he didn't see the hand Qui-Gon Jinn placed on Shmi's shoulder, nor did he hear the concerned, "Will you be alright?"

Nor did he see how stricken her face was in that moment, or hear the half-hearted, "Yeah," she said in reply.

The next morning, when it was time to leave, Anakin Skywalker again looked away too soon to see his mother's brown eyes. To see how much she wanted to race after him.

To _run_.

* * *

When you separate from a loved one, it's like a piece of yourself has gone missing, and will forever be carried by the other. It marks the beginning of sleepless nights puzzling over whether you should have stayed, or followed, or refused to let your paths split; it torments you and confuses you and terrifies you when you realise you can no longer remember what precise colour their eyes were, the way they smiled. . .

Sometimes, when you have experienced far too many partings, it's like you no longer have any pieces of yourself left to lose.

* * *

"Come away with me!" Padmé was frantic. She could see the darkness inside her husband, and she could see how it would consume the galaxy if he didn't control himself in time. "Help me raise our child! Leave everything behind while we still can!"

Vader's eyes were burning - they were blue, they were a different shape, but they burned in a similar way to how his daughter's would one day, years later.

"The Jedi betrayed me, don't you betray me too!"

Padmé's brown eyes were wide, scared. Tearful. No one could deny that despite her duty, in that moment, she wanted to run.

* * *

Darth Vader's words were almost idle as he turned away, "Indeed you are powerful, as the Emperor has foreseen." He needed something to fill the silence - having his son _right there_ and appealing to that _blasted_ niggling of Light telling him to _let him go let him go he's your son the Emperor will kill him let him go_ was nearly unbearable. With his back to Luke, and Luke's back to him, there might as well be lightyears between them.

No such luck, though. Luke turned to face him. And somehow, he knew exactly the words that would pick at that dropped stitch in a seamless tapestry, widen that hole. "Come with me."

_Come away with me_.

Their expressions were worlds apart, but their eyes burned the same and Padmé's likeness still clung on in her son's features and the _words_ \- they were deceptively similar.

Only this time, a loved one was not asking him to flee. They were asking him to fight.

And maybe he was sick of fighting between the Dark Side and the Light.

"Obi-Wan once thought as you do," he said, plugging the gap with hatred, memories of his former master, memories of burning alive on Mustafar. Luke may have been his son in another life, but he had been twisted against him by Obi-Wan - poisoned - defiled. The last piece of Padmé thrown onto a lowlife world and left to rot. "You don't know the power of the Dark Side. I _must_ obey my master." It was the closest he would ever come to perhaps admitting that he didn't _want_ to obey him.

"I will not Turn." So certain of himself - so confident. Vader almost believed it. "And you'll be forced to kill me."

"If that is your destiny." His voice was flat. The boy would drop this line of questioning soon enough-

"Search your feelings, Father." It was a mockery of what he'd said to Luke on that gantry in Cloud City. "You can't do this. I feel the conflict within you; let go of your hate!" Fervour burned, bright as a blue flame, but there was no fear. Of all the Skywalkers' goodbyes, this one was the only one which lacked any fear.

But Luke Skywalker had never been a great friend to fear in the first place.

Vader was tired. So very tired of all this conflict, this tangle of duty and loyalty and blood ties and love. He didn't want to fight any longer. "It is too late for me," he paused unnoticeably because addressing him, "son."

He gestured a hand sharply, before he could change his mind, and watched Luke's back stiffen, his face contort to fear as two 'troopers approached him. "The Emperor will show you the true nature of the Force," he continued, looking away from that terror. The next words felt like a noose around his neck: " _He_ is your master now."

Luke was still studying him with eyes too wise for such a young face. He wasn't afraid anymore - no, in fear's place was a peculiar type of sorrow. "Then my father is truly dead," he said simply, before he allowed the stormtroopers to escort him towards the future. Not once did he look back.

Because, in the end, Luke Skywalker was not a man who wanted to run. He never had been.

* * *

"You can't just go! I won't let you!" The words were vehement, desperate, a scavenger clinging onto one of the few people who made her feel safe.

Finn avoided looked at her - he didn't want to see her eyes - the eyes of a princess, eyes of a queen - see them widened in horror the way they'd been at the table, didn't want to see how much his cowardice hurt her. "Rey, I'm not who you think I am." The words were heavy. They felt like a confession.

"Finn, what are you talking about?" Her voice was frantic, scared - and maybe that was what did it in the end: scared. She knew the truth, had known there was something off about the person who tried too hard to appear to be a confident Resistance fighter, but she had to keep thinking about how easily she'd beaten him on Jakku, how he'd taken so long to fight back-

"I'm not Resistance!" He knew it, she knew it, and yet they both flinched as the words resonated in the air. He shouldn't have lied. He _shouldn't have lied_. All she'd ever known were liars and scavengers and smugglers and thieves and now- "I'm not a hero." He swallowed; his throat was suddenly very dry. "I'm a stormtrooper."

He bit his lip, and forced himself not to close his eyes, to watch how she cringed for a moment before collecting herself.

He ploughed on. She needed to understand - he _had to make her understand_. "Like all of them, I was taken from a family I'll never know, and raised to do one thing." _Fight. Kill. Die. Repeat._ "But my first battle, I made a _choice_." His voice was shaking - his hands were shaking. His _world_ was shaking - had been for a while now, but he'd had Rey, who'd been just as out of her depth as he was, and now. . . if he lost her. . . "I wasn't gonna kill for them.

"So I ran, right into you. And you looked at me like no one else ever had. I was ashamed of what I was." His voice hardened. "But I'm _done_ with the First Order - I am never going back." He took her hand. "Rey, _come with me_."

_I thought you had decided to stay?_

_You're coming with us, aren't you?_

_Come away with me!_

_Come with me._

_Come with me._

Rey said, "Don't go."

* * *

Leia smiled as she watched him. "You know, no matter how much we fought, I always hated watching you leave."

Han shrugged. "That's why I did it."


End file.
